SCANDINAVIA Oresund and Great Belt tolls & traffic forecasts

SCANDINAVIA

Oresund and Great Belt tolls & traffic forecasts

The Great (Store) Belt bridge providing the first fixed link of Denmark’s main island Zeeland to the mainland of Europe should carry an average 10,000 vehicles/day in its first year, according to forecasts. With tolls of $30/car and $100/truck this should produce $160m revenue. A ramp up of 3 years to an equilibrium level of traffic is assumed with 17.2k v/d split between 2700 trucks and 14,500 cars, at which time annual toll receipts should be $265m — making it one of the largest grossing toll crossings in the world. The revised estimates were included in a recent press release from Great Belt A/S, the operator of the 14km crossing.

The modelling assumes a substantial increase in traffic based on the tolls on the bridge being 40% below existing ferry charges. A major Danish distributor of petroleum products has said that with lower freight costs it will change its sourcing generating new road tanker traffic.

The tolls now to be charged are a 25% reduction on those initially contemplated and the modelling suggests they will boost truck traffic 27% and car traffic 3.6%. An environmental study shows the shift from sea and air will reduce energy consumption used in the crossings. The $2b project consists of 3 major parts: (1) a western 6.6km combined road & rail bridge of 63 precast concrete spans mostly 110m (2) an 8km pair of rail tunnels driven under the east channel (3) a 6.6km eastern bridge for 4-lanes of road traffic including a 1624m suspension span and 64m vertical clearance over a deep shipping channel. The crossing makes use of a small island Sprogo midway. Rail traffic is due to begin this summer and road traffic next summer. Combitech has the contract to do the tolling.

Oresund: Work has started on a even larger bridge/tunnel crossing called the Oresund (see map) at the eastern end of Zeeland to link Denmark to Sweden, due for completion around 2000. In this case 4-lanes of road and rail (2 tracks) are combined throughout. From near Copenhagen airport the road/rail combination goes side by side in a 3.5km long immersed tube tunnel under the main Baltic shipping channel the Drogden to an artificial island 4km long being built of dredge material in shallow waters. Continuing eastward the road will go atop the railway lines on 7.8km of bridge — the centerpiece of which is a 1092m cable stayed bridge over a secondary Flinte shipping channel — to the coast of Sweden on the southern fringe of Malmo. Tolls have not yet been set but have to undercut ferry rates. (See TR#3 May 96 p1, www.greatbelt-as.dk & www.oresundkonsortiet.com)